spynotes ::
  April 21, 2006
Phrenology

Today has not been one of my finer moments in parenting. It started out just fine. I worked while AJ was at school. I picked him up and arranged for him to play with The Girl Next Door after lunch. AJ and I had a picnic lunch in our favorite spot under the plum tree, which just started to flower this morning. A robin has built her nest on one of the branches, so we watched her sitting on her eggs and then watched her fly away, hopping nervously in the grass around us, making sure we weren�t bothering her nest. We finished our lunch with popsicles and then I pulled weeds while AJ chased butterflies and then decided to sit on top of his slide to watch for signs of The Girl Next Door.

When she finally emerged, she and AJ ran off to play on her swingset while I continued my attack of the garlic mustard that is trying to strangle out all the better-intentioned wildflowers. A little while later I hear AJ weeping. Afraid he�s been hurt, I ran to the front steps where I found him bawling. He hadn�t been hurt. The Girl Next Door�s father had offered him a popsicle, but he�d said he�d already had one for lunch and he came home to ask if he could have another. When his father said no, then he came outside crying. I calmed him down and sent him off with another snack, which was probably bribery � my husband thought I was rewarding him for crying. But sometimes, I think, you need to pick your battles.

If I�d picked that battle, though, we all would have been happier. AJ went back over to The Girl Next Door�s for a while and just as I was about to go fetch him for a nap, the two of them came back here and asked if they could play in our yard for a while. �It�s almost time for AJ�s nap, so just five minutes,� I said. They wanted to play golf. I said okay and helped them get out AJ�s clubs. I warned them to stand far enough apart and sat behind them to watch. All of a sudden, as AJ was pulling back for a swing, TGND, who had been carefully watching the front end of his club, darted around his back and got clonked in the forehead. It made a loud pop. She started to cry and I ran to get ice while her dad came running over from her yard where he�d been working. A huge purple lump was sprouting over her left eye. As sad as TGND looked, AJ looked even more miserable. He felt terrible, but couldn�t quite articulate it. He sat looking at her with his hands over his ears while she wept, as if he wanted to drown out everything that had just happened.

She has a big bump on her head, but she�s going to be fine. We�re lucky he missed her eye, otherwise it might have been a lot worse. And they�ve both learned some lessons.

I still feel terrible, though. I was right there watching and I totally didn�t see it coming. I don�t like it when that happens. Because I want to think that being a vigilant parent is enough to keep my child � or any child in my care � from harm. I don�t like to be reminded that it�s really not.

And so on this gorgeous spring day when our yard is covered with yellow daffodils, yellower marsh marigolds and the pink and blue bells of Virginia bluebells, when the plumb tree is white with blossoms that hide a nestful of robins eggs, I am feeling inadequate and kind of helpless.

Addendum

Poor AJ. He woke up from his nap still feeling terrible. He feels incredibly guilty for conking his best friend in the head. I told him, "It's okay. It was an accident." "No! No it was on purpose." But he meant he was trying to hit the golf club on purpose, not that he'd hit TGND on purpose. The first thing he did when he got up was to make her a card. He used a purple crayon ("It's her favorite color") and wrote carefully, "Dear TGND..." on the front and drew a picture of a cat underneath it ("she loves cats"). On the inside, he wrote, "Get Well!" and drew a smiling picture of TGND. With purple hair. He ran next door and handed it to her brother, who was skateboarding down his driveway with a friend. He keeps running to the window to see if TGND has come out to play yet, but she has not appeared. AJ mopes on.

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